Or, “Milton’s similes are like panel pictures built into the great edifice”. Discuss with reference to Book I of Paradise Lost.

Answer: The most striking feature of Milton’s style in Paradise Lost is his use of the epic or an expanded simile. He follows in this the model of Homer, Virgil, Statius, Lucan and Tasso. An ordinary simile consists. in a comparison between two things of different kinds, expressed by the use of the word ‘like’ or ‘as.’ An epic or expanded simile, on the other hand, is a complex type of simile in which the point of likeness is elaborated to such an extent that it gives birth to a short descriptive poem in itself. It serves the purpose of illustration and decoration. Miltonic similes are marked by their grand style, their terrible and vivid images and their impact on the imagination of the reader.

Milton’s similes are two-fold. Some of the similes are small, while others are grand and have been described as Homeric similes. In a Homeric simile, the object with which a thing is compared grows to such an extent that it eclipses the thing which is compared. Let us consider the first extended description of Satan with the help of a simile which indicates his gigantic size:

“Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate 

With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes 

That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides 

Prone on the flood, extended long and large. 

So stretcht out huge in length the arch-fiend lay 

Chained on the burning lake.” (Book I, 192-210)

On going through this simile we learn that Satan is compared, first to the legendary Titans, then at much more length to the Leviathan which God “of all His works created hugest.” Milton develops old mariners’ fish stories of a sea creature larger even than the whale, which had been often mistaken by pilots for an island against which they tried to moor their boats. Only after eight lines of such details, do we return to Satan who is being compared with these things- “So stretcht out, huge in length the arch-fiend lay.” It is because of such similes that Dr Johnson appreciates Milton saying that amplitude is the excellence of his similes.

In our second example, let us take the famous simile in which the mass of fallen angels is seen.

“Thick as Autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa.”

Milton here suddenly reduces the size and significance of the host and at the same time brings a breath of fresh air into the poem. The perspective, as well as the atmosphere, shifts again when Milton goes on to compare them to Pharaoh’s horsemen drowned in the Red Sea. (Lines, 304-312) Milton, here, begins by comparing the fallen angels to the scattered sedge afloat on the Red Sea, and then with characteristic use of clauses (when…. whose …. while) he reminds us that the Red Sea was the scene of the overthrow of Pharaoh’s host, and this defeated host is in a similar state.

To sum up, Milton’s similes serve a significant purpose in his epic, the theme of which is far remote from the common experience of mankind. They introduce the human element in the world created by the poet’s lofty imagination. By using similes, the poet gives rest to his imagination exhausted by the sublimity of heaven and hell. He harmonises between the sublime pictures of heaven or hell and the familiar scenes on the earth.